Rebels winning as they grow

Tuesday

Dec 4, 2012 at 2:16 AMDec 4, 2012 at 2:42 AM

By John CurtisDodge City Daily Globe

South Gray senior Trenton Holloway knew that he and the other Rebel seniors were going to have to be the leaders of the squad this season. His job was more along the lines of hitting the boards and scoring on second chances.

Holloway has been diligent in his rebounding and scoring after two games this season, including leading the Rebels to a 60-49 victory over the Sublette Larks in a first round game of the Bluejay Invitational at Cimarron.

The senior post player scored 19 points to lead the Rebels (2-0), including 15 of South Gray’s 23 first half points as his squad didn’t have a hot shooting hand to begin the game.

“I have to take a leadership role because we only have three seniors on varsity,” Holloway said. “He talked about rebounding a lot. We’re a smaller team and we’ve talked about boxing out to get the rebounds.”

Carson Skidmore added 13 points in the win for South Gray, while Tate Skinner scored 12 in the victory.

Taylor Williamson led Sublette (1-1) with 17 points and Jake Gesling added 10 for the Larks in the losing effort.

South Gray allowed only two field goals in the opening quarter to lead 12-5 after the opening quarter before Sublette was able to cut the margin down to six by halftime. The Rebels started getting hotter shooting hands in the second half, scoring 19 points in the third quarter and 37 after intermission to slowly pull away for the victory.

“This is a young team that we have with a lot of sophomores out there,” said South Gray head coach Mark Applegate. “We only had two (players) who saw action last year, so we are pretty young. We make our share of mistakes out there, but we learn from them.

“Trenton was our leading scorer and one of our top rebounders last year, so we rely on his experience and his leadership quite a bit.”

South Gray will face the winner of Tuesday night’s Bucklin/Cimarron game in one Friday night semifinal, while Sublette plays the loser of that game in a consolation game Friday afternoon at the Cimarron Old Gymnasium.

The Buffaloes actually trailed the Spartans 10-8 late in the first quarter before having their height and athleticism overpower Deerfield. Meade led 63-16 going into the final stanza.

Deerfield (0-2) recorded only one field goal after a three-point play by Alex Mata put the Spartans ahead. Meade led 14-10 after the opening stanza and outscored the Spartans 24-4 in the second quarter and 25-2 in the third in the rout.

Meade will play the winner of Tuesday’s Satanta/Wichita County matchup in a semifinal game on Friday, while Deerfield will play the loser of the game in a consolation bracket contest at the Cimarron Old Gymnasium.